NOAA Ship Oregon II

04/29/2026

04/29/2026

02/03/2026

On January 15, 2026, the Oregon II had the privilege of hosting a Change of Command ceremony marking the transition of leadership from Commander Adam Reed to Commander Jesse Milton. This time-honored naval tradition celebrated Commander Reed’s dedicated service and leadership, and Commander Milton’s assumption of command as he took the helm of the Mighty Oregon II.

We were honored to be joined by several distinguished guests, including Captain Stark, Captain Jaskoski, Captain Meckley, Captain Ostapenko, Captain Duncan, Lieutenant Commmander Brinkley, Pascagoula Mayor Willis, and representatives from the offices of Senator Hyde-Smith and Congressman Ezell. We'd also like to express our sincere thanks to the Mississippi Shipbuilding and Maritime Center for hosting this event at their beautiful facility, as well as to Mr. Thomas Love for taking some fantastic photos of the event.

The Oregon II would like to thank Commander Reed for his dedication, professionalism, and passion for our scientific missions, the safety of the ship, and the needs of the entire crew. Commander Reed, it was a pleasure to sail under you and we wish you all the best as you move on to your next assignment.

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend or join us via livestream. You truly helped to make this incredible career milestone unforgettable!

12/08/2025

As we make off our lines and close out another successful year at sea, the crew of the NOAA Ship Oregon II (R-332) is proud to celebrate the completion of our 2025 field season!!!

Despite the government shutdown, The Oregon II was able to sail two highly productive legs of our Fall Groundfish Survey, gathering critical data that supports fisheries science and sustainable management across the entire Gulf. A huge thank you to our scientists and crew whose dedication kept the mission running strong from start to finish.

The tail end of the season also brought with it some major crew milestones:

Fair winds and following seas to LTJG Peter “PJ” LeBel, who has departed after two years of steadfast service. Your leadership and humor will be missed on deck and on the bridge.

Congratulations to ENS Vincenzo Ledonne, who earned his Underway Officer of the Deck (OOD) qualification this season — a major professional achievement and a testament to hard work, and commitment to the mission.

We're excited to welcome aboard ENS Jesus “Chuy” Rodriguez, the newest member of the Oregon II wardroom. We’re very excited to have him joining us and can't wait to see him in action next field season.

Finally, The Mighty Oregon II is proud to announce our new official Chief Boatswain Joshua Cooper and our new permanent Survey Technician Gretchen Arndt.

Thank you to everyone — crew, scientists, augmenters, and shoreside support — who helped make 2025 a year of success and safe operations! Until the next mission...⚓️🎣🔬🇺🇸

10/01/2025

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09/03/2025

As The Mighty Oregon II reaches the halfway point of our Shark/Red Snapper Longline Survey project, we wanted to share a few highlights from our first two operational legs.

Leg 1 took the Oregon II to the East Atlantic surveying along the coast from Miami, FL up to Cape Hatteras, NC. For leg 2, the Oregon II traveled back around the Florida Keys and surveyed the western coast of Florida, making our way back home to Mississippi.

We are very excited for leg 3 and 4 as we head to the western part of the Gulf for our Texas and Louisiana surveys!

07/09/2025

At the end of May, the Mighty Oregon II finished 3 legs of the G-FISHER (Gulf Fishery Independent Survey of Habitat and Ecosystem Resources), a collaborative video-based survey, focused on sampling reef fish. We worked with scientists from the Southeast Fisheries Science Center to visit sites all along the Gulf Coast. During the project we completed 366 camera deployments totaling 183 hours of collected video and hydrological data! 🐠🪸

This survey collects critical data to estimate indices of relative abundance of important reef fish species (e.g. snapper-grouper) supporting stock assessments and providing management advice. This survey also collects hydrological, oceanographic, habitat, and genomics data that are used for estimating relative abundance, to develop survey designs to optimize results and impacts, and to more fully understand reef ecology.

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center shared videos from the reef cameras we deployed during the project, as well as our operations map showing where the Oregon II has been sailing the past 2 months! These videos really capture the beautiful and often unseen side of the Gulf.

Video surveys are effective for monitoring species associated with natural and artificial reef habitats, which are difficult to sample with other survey approaches. G-FISHER incorporates Video Image Analytics for the Marine Environment (VIAME) a software system developing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to increase efficiency in providing timely data for fisheries assessments.

If you'd like to see more of the work the Southeast Fisheries Science Center does, check out their social media pages!
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07/08/2025

🦐 Every year from June to July, scientists aboard the NOAA Research Vessel Oregon II study and measure hypoxic conditions in the Gulf of America—but what is hypoxia and why is it important?

💧 Oxygen is vital to life (even underwater), and when concentrations of oxygen get too low, they are deemed hypoxic waters, or "dead zones". The waters off the US experience the second largest dead zone in the world.

💲 These dead zones can have detrimental effects on communities in the Gulf who rely primarily on shrimp fishing, with estimated commercial fishing earnings around 5.5 billion dollars. Meaning, around 150,000 jobs in the area rely on low hypoxia levels to make fishing possible.

⛴️ Dissolved oxygen data gathered onboard is sent to NCEI scientists who create maps of the Gulf that experience frequent dead zones. These near real-time maps are used by fishermen to know where is best to fish, and by scientists to better understand and predict why and where the dead zones are occurring each year. For more information on hypoxia and dead zones, check out our web story: https://bit.ly/HypoxiaWatch

05/27/2025

03/28/2025

NOAA Ship Oregon II is happy to announce that we have completed our underway Operational Readiness Training and are ready for our 2025 Field Season!⚓️🌊

This past ORT went great! While sailing in the Gulf of America we tested our field equipment including the equipment for our new Reef Fish Project, a project we haven't had the opportunity to do since 2011! 🐠🐟🦈
We also ran various safety drills including firefighting, man overboard, and abandon ship.

We were also excited to finally sail with our new wardroom Executive Officer LCDR Peter Gleichauf and welcome back LCDR Rachel Pryor as acting Commanding Officer! We also had so many augmenting crew members onboard who helped make this ORT as successful as it was!

The entire team cannot wait for our field season to start and we are excited to see what experiences we have with the projects this year!